Cousins will dress for tonight’s game but will not start, Westphal said….

Asked what he needed to see from Cousins to know if he is changing his ways, Westphal said: “We’ll know it when we see it … . His attitude has a long way to go. It will be up to coaches, teammates and most fans (to see a change).”

Cousins is suiting up because the Kings need to get to 12 guys on the active roster. One of those pesky NBA rules.

This fight about Cousins’ ego and if he demanded a trade has gone on for days. Tonight is when this fight really gets stupid — the Kings need Cousins’ size and athleticism up front to deal with Marc Gasol and the Memphis Grizzlies (Zach Randolph is out with a bruised ligament in his knee). But whether Westphal calls his name is up in the air, Cousins may not be in the rotation.

Neither Westphal nor Cousins will back down. Cousins has been an attitude problem since he arrived in Sacramento including fights with coaches and with Donte Green in the locker room. His reputation around the league is as a potentially very good player who is immature and acts like a Prima Donna. Westphal has struggled with this but his way of dealing with it comes off more like a frustrated parent of a toddler than a man paid to lead a franchise. And if — as reported multiple places — Cousins asked why he hadn’t been traded if he was such a problem, that is not a trade demand.

This has become a… well, I’ll say battle of egos since this is a family site. But both men need to act like grown ups, take a step back and come at this with some maturity. However, the history in Sacramento suggests it will be more of the same.

In fact, in Saturday’s dunk contest, he didn’t look like a dunker at all.

The Pacers star missed all three attempts of his first dunk, and a Black Panther mask was by far the biggest draw of his second. Oladipo was eliminated after the first round.

Maybe Dennis Smith Jr. wasn’t the only eliminated dunker who left something in his bag. This Oladipo dunk – 180 degrees, throwing ball off the backboard with his left hand while in mid-air, dunking with his right hand – while preparing in Los Angeles was awesome.

A statement released Wednesday by the NFL and NBA clubs says their 90-year-old owner is resting comfortably at Ochsner Medical Center, a hospital which also serves as a major sponsor and which owns naming rights to the teams’ training headquarters.

Benson has owned the New Orleans Saints since 1985 and bought the New Orleans Pelicans in 2012.

In recent years, Benson has overhauled his estate plan so that his third wife, Gayle, would be first in line to inherit control of the two major professional franchises.

Spurs coach Gregg Popovich said he’d be surprised if Kawhi Leonard played again this season, a stark reversal from just a month ago. Back then, even while announcing Leonard was out indefinitely with a quad injury, the San Antonio coach said Leonard wouldn’t miss the rest of the season.

After spending 10 days before the All-Star break in New York consulting with a specialist to gather a second opinion on his right quad injury, All-NBA forward Kawhi Leonard bears the burden of determining when he’s prepared to play again, sources told ESPN.

Leonard has been medically cleared to return from the right quad tendinopathy injury, but since shutting down a nine-game return to the Spurs that ended Jan. 13, he has elected against returning to the active roster, sources said.

The uncertainty surrounding this season — and Leonard’s future which could include free agency in the summer of 2019 — has inspired a palpable stress around the organization, league sources said.

At first glance, this sounds like Derrick Rose five years ago. Even after he was cleared to play following a torn ACL, the then-Bulls star remained mysterious about when he’d suit up. His confidence in his physical abilities seemed to be a major issue, and he was never the same player since (suffering more leg injuries).

But the Spurs famously favor resting players to preserve long-term health. They seem unlikely to rush back Leonard. They might even sit players who want to play more often. And Leonard isn’t Rose.

Still, it’s clear something is amiss in San Antonio. Maybe not amiss enough to end Leonard’s tenure there, but the longer this lingers, the more time for tension to percolate.